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Was just pulled out by dear hubby for supper. Since I was too lazy to change out of my PJs, we ended up taking-away roti kaya, roti pisang and 10 sticks of chicken satay. At this rate…I’m definitely going to gain back the 2kg I lost over the past week!!

2005 is fast approaching…I think this year, I’ll actually make some New Year resolutions. I’ve never liked making resolutions because I know that I will never keep them in the end…so what’s the point? But it’s time to face the cold hard facts that time and life is passing by and unless I actively take control and do the things that I really want to do, I’m just going to be a spectator in my life. So it’s time to evaluate what I want and where I want to be…this time, next year. And perhaps, with some determination and perseverance, I will be able to achieve at least half (?) of my resolutions. And with that….

Sleep!

8 minutes past 12….Christmas is over! And I have just spent the whole of yesterday revamping my website. So soon?!? Well, after several days, I began to feel that the colours were a teeny bit jarring to the eyes. I was surfing the net when I came across blogger.com. I thought…why not just sign up and try blogging? Yeah right. I took a look at how much changes I had to make via HTML to customize the pages…hmm…just made me realize how much I love FrontPage!! But they did have some pretty nice templates….so I choose one to semi-replicate back on this site. At the same time, I also signed up for Flickr! I’ve just managed to include the Flickr Zeitigeist into this page after playing around with the HTML code and integrating it with the code they provided….pretty cool!

Anyways…Friday was fun. There wasn’t alot of people in the office and we got off work at 3pm! Eric and I headed straight for 1 Utama right after work. Surprisingly, there wasn’t alot of people…I mean, you do see the odd guy or two doing some last minute Christmas shopping…hahah….but it wasn’t as packed as I expected it to be.

I saw an advert for this new restaurant in the old wing of 1 Utama called Hakkakaya in Thursday’s newspaper…so we headed over there for dinner. The restaurant wasn’t full (it was halfway between tea and dinner time…), and we grabbed a seat right at the end. Surprisingly, they had quite alot of food on the menu. I was only expecting something along the lines of toast bread with kaya (coconut jam), half boiled eggs, coffee and perhaps a nasi lemak. Anyways, I went for the half boiled egg, porridge with peanuts, chicken and dried oysters, kaya toast while hubby ordered a Nasi Lemak and Mak Chok (a barley dessert). And so…the review: half boiled egg was fine, if a little lukewarm. Honestly, it would be pretty scary if a restaurant screws up cooking a half boiled egg! Porridge…also luke-warm. One wonders if it was left at the counter too long or…? However, the porridge didn’t have much dried oysters in it, and the chicken was abit rubbery…pity.

Hubby’s Nasi Lemak looked good, though. I tried a bit of the rice…it had the right texture of being abit sticky and the taste of the coconut was just enough. Plus point, it had the small ikan bilis that I love. The Mak Chok was good too….not overly sweet. Only complaint? Lukewarm!!!. The kaya toast came right at the end….and that, in my opinion, was the biggest letdown of all (especially for a place called ‘Hakkakaya’). Maybe this is really the authentic hakka style of toasting bread…but it really wasn’t what I liked. The bread was brown bread and it was toasted till it tasted as dry as sawdust. Furthermore, the kaya and butter spread was not what one would call generous. It was so skimpy that it left gaps when I spread it over the bread! Kaya toast should be dripping with kaya and butter. Sigh. Still, it’s worth a trip back for the nasi lemak and also to try the rest of the dishes….=)

Unfortunately, by the time we left, a traffic jam had already built up along the main roads…so it took us quite a long while to get home. There’s really no escaping traffic jams in kl!!

Woke up this morning to the sound of…nothing! Looks like the construction stops for Christmas! The joy!!!! Had such a good sleep till mid-morning….bliss! A late lunch at Chatterbox @ Bangsar Village, bought some mini-cakes (my fav is the mini blackforest. Two bites of heaven!) from Cafe 1920 for later and chocolate ice-cream from Lecka-Lecka for immediate consumption. And then it was back home to work on this site. Dinner was a quick Ipoh hor fun at a small shop called ‘Fei Fei something’ @ Midvalley. Gosh…memory’s really going fast! They do a pretty good ‘leng chee kang’ too…not too cold, plenty of stuff to chew and not too sweet as well. Yummy.

Oh dear god, believe it or not I’m still coughing my lungs out (as one colleague aptly puts it). I was back at office on Tuesday. Felt pretty OK with exception to the cough. But on the way home, my head started pounding and by the time I reached home, the only thing I could think about was to rush to the toilet sink before I throw up my lunch out in the carpark. Hmm. Took an MC on Wednesday, and I’m back to work today. There must be something about the office air or the computer radiation…or something else…because by the evening, I was feeling pretty bad again. My head was kinda spinning….and I had to rerun the same programming script 6 times before getting an error free program. And when I finally got everything correct…I deleted the log. That was when I decided it was definitely time to head home.

I have dinner at my parents place tonight. It’s a Thursday thing…hubby drops me off before going for his weekly badminton game. I call Thursday my good-food-day. Honestly, you’ll really really learn to appreciate mum’s cooking when you’re not staying at home anymore. Today, it was fried mee hoon, soup with wan tons and pak choys. Yummy! Was still feeling peckish when I came back home though…so popped a couple of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in my mouth and chomped away. There’s just something about peanut butter…it’s comfort food. I used to buy imported US mags when I was younger and there would occasionally be adverts showing Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. And they looked so yummy! Imagine my surprise some time back when I found them in KL! I think the only store I’ve consistently seen selling these yummy chocs is the one at KLCC at the LRT/1901 Hot Dog/Rotiboy end.

Found a pic of the Louis Vuitton bag I was drooling over in HK. Mini monogram in cherry…..good enough to eat!

Just read in the news yesterday that Harry Potter book 6: Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince will be out on July 16 next year!! It’s funny cause I never liked Harry Potter when the first two movies came out. In fact, I refused to watch it for ages. And typical me, just did a 180 degree turnabout one day, bought all the books and watched both movies - actually got Eric to take me to Kinokuniya at 5am in the morning to line up….!! And now, I’m a full Harry Potter convert. And double yayyy…Goblet of Fire will be out next year too…the movie, I mean. So far, the release date posted is 18 November 2005. Can’t wait! I read a report in ‘The World In 2005′ that mentioned how bookstores actually recorded a significant drop in sales in 2004 because no new Harry Potter book was released. Now that’s a sign of how big the Harry Potter phenomenon is!

Oh yeah…Pocky Sticks. It’s this Japanese snack…you know how cute Japanese stuff are…even the people…but that’s besides the point. It all started last Saturday on the way back to Ipoh. After lunch at Green Forest, we popped into a shop to get some water. Eric wanted something to chew on while driving (probably to keep him awake since I always end up snoring away during car rides)…and he picked this pink box of Pocky Sticks. And during the journey, he was munching on it…crunch crunch crunch…and I couldn’t eat a single stick because of my sore throat. How extremely maddening. Well, the next time I saw it was in Isetan…but next to it was this big green box of Men’s Pocky Sticks. Hmmm….bigger? Thicker? A certain shape? Couldn’t resist. Turned out to be dark chocolate, which is my favourite type of chocolate of all! So despite being sick, I chewed my way through one packet. And this afternoon, after lunch at Genki, we dropped by Isetan again and this time, I bought 2!! Berry and Almond Crush. I’ve generously given one of each to Eric. It’s now lined up on my desk…just waiting to be munched upon.

Well, the rest of the day was really pretty uneventful. I did take my T3 to the office though…took a group picture with my teammates and boss and a couple of silly shots. On the left: an angel handphone accessory my boss gave us together with a candy cane for Christmas (not shown), and on the right: cute doll pens (souvenirs for us from my boss’s recent trip to HK). Ha…I can imagine all of us bringing the pens in for meetings!

Time for bed. Thank god tomorrow’s Friday! Nites!

Back from Hong Kong. Back from Ipoh. And horribly sick!!!!!!! Sore throat, flu, cough and toothache…just about everything possible. Smart-mouthed me told my parents at the start of our holiday in HK (back tracking a bit…when we left for HK, my parents were just recovering from…guess what? Sore throat, flu and cough!) that it’s better to fall sick at the end of a holiday then at the start. Guess I’m really eating my words right now!

Hong Kong was FUN! Surprise, surprise…I fulfilled one of my ‘wishes’ on my wish list! A Gucci messenger bag. Yayy! And we stuffed ourselves with plenty of good food. I can honestly say that there isn’t a place in HK that doesn’t dish up good food…from rice to dim sum to cakes to buns to desserts and tong sui…this place is a food heaven! Or is it haven?

We had Char Siew buns from a nearby bakery practically everyday…it’s really that good till the point that I tried to sneak one back to KL! I had also planned to fulfill my quota of mango drinks (2 a day) from a dessert shop called Hui Lau Shan…unfortunately, the sore throat started on day 3….=( And guess what? We spotted HK singer George Lam while having dinner in the same restaurant (although I would’ve prefered…say…Aaron Kwok? Hehe…)!! Photos of the trip will be up soon at The Next Chapter’s photo gallery.

We got back on Thursday night…did the usual stuff of unpacking, laundry, etc. Wasn’t feeling all too bad then. Managed to catch a rerun of Sex And The City. Hubby seems quite addicted to this show too…so I’ve been trying my luck and have been bugging him to watch the first few seasons with me.

I got up on Friday morning feeling half dead. Spent the day lazing around the house listening to the lovely orchestra of the damn loud machines pounding away outside!!! Escaped to Midvalley in the evening, where I finally FINALLY bought my Sony camera! Yayy!!! Managed to catch The Phantom Of The Opera too. Honestly, if you can, do try to watch the stage version. Not to say the movie was bad…far from it. In fact, it’s pretty much similar to the stage version though they did add in a bit of history on how the Phantom became the Phantom and what happened to Christine in the end. If you’re interested on how the Phantom ended up haunting the Paris Opera House, try to find the book written by Susan Kay, entitled (duh) Phantom. It’s one of my favourites and really gives you a background of his life though it’s totally fictional…=) Downside of the movie was the girl sitting next to me. Firstly, she ate french fries followed by a chicken burger. Yes, imagine the smell!!! Worst of all….she sang (yes she SANG!!!!!!) throughout the movie. Yikes! Of all the weirdos….

Saturday and today was spent in Ipoh. By then, I was in a horrible condition. Shouldn’t have gone. But never mind…did it anyways. Practically spent the whole of Saturday sleeping. Just woke up to pack, get my butt in the car, out the car, unpack…and oh…managed to slot in dinner and a movie too…hehe. Ocean’s 12. Brad Pitt and George Clooney…of course I could drag myself out of bed for them!! Spent some time tinkering around with my new toy too though I still haven’t quite figured it out. Patience is a virtue I’ll never possess!

And I did managed to finish Rosie Dunne and Becoming Strangers in HK. First off…Rosie Dunne. This is a really good book!! It’s entirely made up of emails and letters, and it’s just hearbreaking, heartwrenching, heartaching…you get the picture. I think it’s better than P.S. I Love You. Not quite up to the standard of The Time Traveller’s Wife…but I’d give it an solid 8/10. Becoming Strangers however…ahh…I think I’m just too shallow for these type of books. I think that somewhere inside, there’s probably a story to be read and learnt. But I just got so bored somewhere about page 10 that I just started flipping and flapping the pages to reach the end asap.

Just finished catching The 4400 on TV. Oh yeah….indication of how much hubby is into Sex And The City: This episode of The 4400 featured David Eigenberg who also acted as Steve Brady in S.A.T.C. I just got out of the shower when I heard hubby yelling out to me: Heyyyyy….that’s Miranda’s husband! #1. He remembers it’s someone’s husband from S.A.T.C. #2. He remembers it’s Miranda’s husband. Miracle! =))

Luckily I’m off work tomorrow…so I have one more day to recuperate. Got a few mags to keep me company…my gossip magazine: New Idea, the latest issue of Klue and Her World’s first bridal magazine. Yes yes…even though I’m married, I still like to pour over bridal magazines…*blush*.

Off to take my meds, read, watch…and generally make the most out of my last day of lazing around…*sniff sniff*. If only I could have just one more char siew bun….

Nites, working-on-Monday people! Tee hee…

Just finished packing. One last update before going to bed: Yes…that house did have the dinner tonight. Looks like it really was a wedding. At about 9pm, there was a procession up to the house complete with kompangs. The tents looked really nice lighted up too! Pictures are a bit blurry even though I used the balcony railing as a make-shift ‘tripod’ cause unfortunately, I’m scared of heights so my hands weren’t as steady as they should be…*grin*…

Oh, I’m halfway through Rosie Dunne. Got quite immersed in the book and trying to control myself from finishing it by tonight…so far, the story has been pretty interesting!

Nite, all! Hong Kong, here I come!